Why working too hard could be the biggest mistake you are making and how you can grow your business faster while working reasonable working hours.

As Minda Zetlin reminded us some general harmful effects of working too hard in her article “10 Reasons To Stop Working Too Hard”, it is important to point out how it can also harm your business dangerously.This article will also introduce what could be the most productive alternative to hard work because of course, simply working less and leaving work undone will never turn profitable. But first we need to understand where money really comes from, and why working hard and making money at the same time are rarely compatible.Only few people know how big money is made, and this is why most people never get rich.

Rich People Have A SecretIn an article published by Business Insider, Bill Edgar describes what makes rich people and poor people different by revealing a basic principle. He says most rich people have something in common. A common strategy that brought them where they are, whether they are aware of it or not. Most of them didn’t become rich by working hard. They got there by making others work for them.Now you must be thinking: “I don’t have the money to hire people”. I am actually writing this article because I know you don’t need that money.Money could have been an excuse a few decades ago but not in the age of Internet.No, I am not talking about hiring freelancers or outsourcing to people you will pay a few dollars an hour. Because you will still have to pay them anyway and our goal is to save both time and money, so outsourcing is not an option.Moreover, besides the cost of outsourcing, delegating tasks to people you don’t know still means working because you always have to brief, manage, check on people’s work, and you often need to have things redone.So how can you make other people work for you then? Right now, you can’t. And it is not a problem at all. Because as an online startup, there is something better than people to help you get things done.What? We’ll get there soon but first, I want you to know why working too hard is bad for your business.

As A Business Owner Your Job Is To Think. And Decide.Let’s say you decide to continue building or running your business online the way you are doing it now.You want to have control over everything, so you do or get involved in everything.This is a common mistake that can easily lead online entrepreneurs to failure, for 3 reasons:

1) A Saturated Mind Is An Incapable Mind.First of all, trying to take care of every field of your business makes you lose sight of the big picture. You focus too much on details and waste your time working instead of looking and moving forward. That’s what I said, you waste your time working. As Minda Zetlin puts it in her article, “you suck when it counts”, and “your judgement is impaired”. It is simple, the more different tasks you work on, the more your mind gets cluttered, and the less clear and educated are your decisions.

2) You Are Not An Expert At Everything.The second reason is you are very unlikely to be an expert in every field from design to IT. So why are you losing the opportunity to let someone, or a software, do the job for you and get great or even perfect results? It is understandable how some entrepreneurs insist on being the one who does everything, because the more your success depends on yourself and your own achievements, the more rewarding it is. But are you really on the way to success when you have no design skills and still try to design? Or when you have no advanced Internet skills and try to track your website’s performance and do SEO?

3) Time Is LimitedThe last reason is obvious. Nobody has time to do it all. There are extremely few people who got rich all alone. Yes, you might have time to maintain your activity. But if you are the kind of person who needs to sleep at night, then I seriously doubt you can find time to develop more ideas and pull your business forward if you are already doing everything from product development to customer service. Time is money, use it wisely.Now for those of you who are still reading, determined to find a solution to this obvious hindrance to success, read on. There is an affordable solution that can let you be the general manager you are supposed to be instead of the super-busy 10-in-1 employee you are today.

Make Computers Work For You.Think about how much time you spend:- Designing a website,- Editing your website,- Running a marketing strategy,- Updating inventory and product descriptions,- Answering customers’ questions,- Sending follow-up mails, processing orders,- Trying to track and analyze your performance,How much time do you waste trying to fix every little thing?

And here is the most important question: Are you fully satisfied with what you get when you do everything yourself?Couldn’t it be better?

Ecommerce softwares can do almost everything for you. And they do it very well.They come with a large choice of ready-to-use and customizable templates to provide you with a professional and good-looking online shop that conveys your brand’s personality.They are backed with an army of employees who are determined to help you and give you all the support you need, and who want you to succeed. They are your team.They provide a shopping cart which allows you to accept all kinds of payment methods, calculates and processes orders automatically.They give you access to all the tracking data you can dream of, and hundreds of apps that make your life easier, and less busy.They also build and update your customers database, allowing you to conduct effective email marketing campaigns.Some have even developed a point-of-sale system that synchronizes your inventory between your physical shop and your online shop.By automating tedious tasks and giving you access to 24h support, ecommerce softwares help you save your time and let you become the only thing you should be to your business: the Brain.Nowadays, you basically have access to everything a staff could do for you without having to pay any employee or freelancer.

A Simple SolutionNow you know why it is bad to work too much, even for your own business, and you have learnt how to better organize your business life. So stop trying to do everything yourself when you know it could be better. Stop wasting precious time working too hard when you could take that time to think clearly and take the right decisions instead. Today you can let a software do the boring and/or technical job for you, better than you, and focus on the enjoyable and meaningful part of your business.If you are willing to do that favor to yourself and your business, take a few minutes to check out the reference for ecommerce: Shopify. The best part is you can now try it for free for 14 days here!If you found some useful tips or an interesting insight in this article, please share it on Facebook, Twitter and everyone else. Thanks! :)